


i was a ghost

by craftingdead



Series: ooh tee pee oneshots challenge 2k19 please help me god [2]
Category: The Crafting Dead
Genre: Dreams, Implied Relationships, M/M, Mild Language, Possible Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 01:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18129299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/craftingdead/pseuds/craftingdead
Summary: “I dreamed about you two,” he said.





	i was a ghost

**Author's Note:**

> (ak/ghetto/nick - 3 points hoo boi howdy)
> 
> team nick ot4 next also like, two updates in one day? sexy

Ghetto’s fifteen and standing next to a boy in a near-closing store. Some old convenience thing, a light a few feet away flickering like there’s no tomorrow. 

“I like this song,” the boy, Nick, says, swinging his legs. He’s sitting on top of the counter—more than likely against the rules. Late night customers glare at him as he accidentally kicks candy off their stands and sends it flying across the store. He only says sorry when he kicks again and ends up kicking Ghetto in the leg instead.

“It’s no problem,” Ghetto responds.   
  
“Okay,” Nick says, then adds, “my Dad’s gonna be pissed when I get home late.”

“Come home with me, then.”

“Okay,” Nick says again.

Ghetto pushes one foot against the ground and hops onto the counter next to Nick backward. He wraps his arms around his waist and buries his head into his hair. It smells like steam and is soft against his cheek. Nick leans back into it and sighs softly. “You’re warm,” he says, as another light in the store goes out to be met with a mumbled “mmm-hmm” from Ghetto.

“Hey, you wanna know a secret?” Nick whispers after a few adequate minutes of Ghetto playing with his hair passed to another “mmm-hmm,” more drowsy this time. “Are you sure? Okay, then. I’m actually dead.”

“No you’re not, I’m holding you,” Ghetto argues, propping his head onto Nick’s shoulder. “Shut the fuck up, don’t try to pinch me either.”

Nick smiles at that. “Are you sure? Like super-duper sure?”

“Well, it’d be weird if I was holding a talking dead person, so.”

“Okay, okay, you got me.” He laughs. “I’m not dead. Yet.”

“That’s totally not ominous-as-hell.”

“I know.”

“Fun.”

A man walks up to a different counter and buys a pack of cigarettes. He has red hair, blue eyes, and looks surprisingly put together, considering what he’s buying. A different man, name tag reading “Rich,” rings him up with glazed eyes and looks like he wants to be anywhere but here. Nick points to him—the redheaded, cigarette man, as he leaves (looking like he stole something, mind you)—and says, with certainty, “That’s my killer.”

Ghetto snorts. He shouldn’t but he ends up doing it anyway. “That dude? He looks homeless. A twig. I could snap him in half. He looks like he’s barely twenty. Why would a twenty-year-old wanna kill a teenager?”

Nick doesn’t answer him. “ _ Shit, _ ” he stammers instead, as the person labeled “Rich” waves him over, annoyed. “I need to leave now.”

“Fuck.”

“He’s getting something; no one’s looking, here—”

Ghetto turns his head to meet Nick as the latter kisses him softly on the mouth, hands cupping his face, before slipping off the counter as quickly as he kissed him and skipping over to where Rich disappeared into the back room. He barely gets to wave bye as the back of his head disappears into it.

* * *

He grits his teeth, leaning over with his hands bunched in his jeans. Ghetto’s in his mid-thirties now, maybe, sure, and his locs fall over his shoulders. “Fuck,” he whispers, then shouts: “ _ Fuck! _ ”

A hand grazes his back and Ghetto bats it away. It returns after a few moments pass, spread out and calloused, and pats his back uncomfortably. “There, there,” a voice says as he tries to shittily choke back sobs.

“Fuck off,” Ghetto snaps. AK pulls him into his chest as his hand rubs circles into his back and Ghetto hates to admit how comforting it actually is, even to himself. “I thought I told you to fuck off, old man.”

“We’re the same age,” AK says.

“Which one of us has more wrinkles?”

“Ah. Only sometimes I can imagine a world where you don’t make fun of me for that almost constantly. At least you can see that I’ve lived a long and healthy life while you’re over here having a mid-life crisis.”

“You’ve been in a constant mid-life crisis since you turned twenty-nine,” Ghetto responds, voice muffled by one of the rarely used, shitty tee-shirts that AK has. Mainly camo and band, mainly too small for him, mainly used by—rarely used anymore at all. They were pushed to the back of the closet and both of them tried their best to forget about them.

AK pushes his hair out of his face, where it had been falling in and making his nose itch terribly, and says, “You’re shit at pretending like you’re alright, you know that? Absolute shit. Admit you need help and let me hold you in my buff arms.”

“I’m stronger than you!  _ And  _ taller!”

“Shh. No crying only buff arms.”

“You’re turning my jokes on me in the worst way possible.”

As much as Ghetto hates getting… “doted on,” a word he hates and would rather swallow a burning sword than admit to AK doing that to him, it felt even comforting, for someone as sweaty as him. And, fuck, it was even working. Even calming him down. Usually, he had to do this on his own, seeing as no one else could. Or should.

Mostly because everyone else knew that it wasn’t their place to try and hold him normally, play with his hair, cup his face, be actually fucking vulnerable with him—only some people had that right. And whoever didn’t know it fair-and-square and didn’t attempt to use any of the previous methods to help him up. Mostly because he once punched Shark in the nose for trying to touch his back (which he very much regretted afterward and apologized profusely for several days because he felt like even more shit, which was fun). 

“I love you, dude, you know that?” AK says, now rubbing fucking circles into his back. As much as he liked to make jokes… as far down as he could be on the list of people allowed to comfort him, AK was doing a pretty damn good job and had been for the past years.

“I love you too.”

“Wow, okay, I wasn’t actually ready for you to immediately respond like that,” AK responds, flustered. If Ghetto looks up right now, his face will probably be bright red. “You still despise me with all your heart, though, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Totally.”

AK snorts. “Good to see that some things don’t ever change. Fuck you, too.”

“Yeah. Totally.” And Ghetto doesn’t let himself fall asleep, that’s too messy, but it’s better than before.

* * *

Ghetto woke up with one arm under his head and the other going numb, AK’s entire body weight resting on him.

On one side of him was Nick, curled up with a thigh over his legs. AK was on the other with his back pressed against his side, facing the wall. Their hands were interlocked just to the side of his waist, Nick’s arm resting on his chest and AK reaching back in a very-obviously-uncomfortable position, and still managed to fall asleep in it. Impressive.

“I dreamed about you two,” he said.

But both of them were fast asleep, so they didn’t hear him.


End file.
